


the holy or the broken (hallelujah)

by sebastian2017



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conversion, Fluff and Angst, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Steve Rogers, Judaism, LGBTQ Jewish Character(s), M/M, Not Canon Compliant, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22117264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/pseuds/sebastian2017
Summary: Captain America is the nation's All American, good Christian boy next door. Steve Rogers? He's not so sure. He's not sure at all what he's supposed to be without Bucky, but Shabbat and prayers and the warmth of shul on a lonely Friday night? It's like having Bucky back in a way, at least for a few hours.aka: the one where Steve finds a new home while missing Bucky. Good thing it's one he can fit into perfectly when he comes back.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 38
Kudos: 186





	1. it's not a cry that you hear at night

**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter titles from Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (looking up the whole verse the snippets are from is highly recommended ;) )

The history books aren’t necessarily  _ wrong _ . Steve really did grow up in a Catholic home and he was raised more or less observant. He’d been baptized, been catechized, been confirmed, and everything else. The history books just hadn’t been as accurate in the details, which is no surprise. They rarely are. Steve’s Catholic, sure, but a lapsed one at best. He’d stopped going to Mass after his mother passed away and even besides that, his best childhood memories around religion have nothing to do with Jesus or Mass or priests. All his favorite memories are of the many holidays he spent at the Barnes house, trying awkwardly to keep up with all the Hebrew prayers and traditions. 

He’d always stuck out like a sore thumb, small and skinny and painfully blond amidst Bucky and all his stocky, dark haired family. If that wasn’t bad enough, Steve had always  _ very  _ obviously been mumbling nonsense during prayers. Bucky had never minded, though. Just slung a friendly arm around Steve’s shoulders, grinned as bright and charming as ever, and explained to his Bubbe that Steve wasn’t Jewish yet, but Bucky planned on changing that sometime when they were grown up. 

So maybe the history books aren’t wrong when they describe Steve as a Christian, but it’s nowhere near as important in his life as they often make it sound. Steve suspects they only emphasize it because it helps sell the idea of him as the perfect, All-American role model, whatever that means. He wishes he could correct them somehow, make it so the idealized version of himself that lives in the public’s minds isn’t some pious altar boy, but Steve can’t imagine how he would without causing a PR nightmare. Maybe if Bucky really had managed to convert him before he’d died, but Steve knows that some fond childhood memories doesn’t make him Jewish. 

Still. He doubts he’ll ever be the sort to start going to Mass with any sort of regularity, not even Easter and Christmas. Not while every time he reminisces too long, he still thinks back to candles and spices and Bucky murmuring Hebrew next to him. One of the SHIELD agents suggests seeking out guidance from a priest or congregation to help adjust to the 21st century, but Steve thinks he’d feel much more comfort from being able to stick out amidst all the Barnes celebrations again. 

His most recent memories with Bucky were all out in battle, where they definitely weren’t stopping every Friday night to pray and eat and rest, but Steve likes to recall their childhood more than the war. When he would all but beg his mother to let him go to Bucky’s place on Fridays. He’d never been able to really explain  _ why  _ he liked the Barnes household during Shabbat so much, but he’d cherished every second of it while growing up. Steve has far bigger concerns these days than he ever did as a child, starting with trying to make sense of living in a time when  _ aliens  _ now attack cities, it seems, and having to stay on stand by most days in case more aliens or supervillains of the human kind make an appearance. Despite that, he still feels a pang in his chest any time he glances at the calendar and realizes it’s Friday. The 21st century, he’s come to find, is a world of constant motion and progress. He can’t imagine this world ever taking a pause. He could use a quiet night with Bucky and his family now more than ever. 

Steve contemplates this one Friday afternoon, while he sits on a couch in their communal living room with a sketchbook on his lap. He’s only barely aware of what he’s drawing, but when the world comes into focus again, he realizes he’s been busy sketching what he remembers of the Barnes family living room. On a Friday night, it seems, judging from the half drawn lit candles set on the mantle. Steve puts his pencil down and shuts the sketchbook, before he can get any further with the drawing. Some days, drawing his old memories, getting them down on paper before they can disappear, is soothing. Others, it’s just a painful reminder of the world he’ll never get again. Today, he already has enough weighing down on his soul. 

He’s glad he closed the sketchbook, because a moment later, Natasha sits down beside him and looks at him curiously. Steve is half convinced she only spends time in the Tower because she’s trying to find out intel about all of them. (More than half convinced, truthfully.) “Why the long face, old man?” she asks. 

It’s going to take Steve a while to get used to all the jokes and taunts about his age, when he’s pretty sure he’s one of the youngest members of the team if they go off real age, but he just ignores it with a shake of his head. “It’s nothing. Thinking of an old friend of mine.” 

“Sergeant Barnes?” she guesses. 

And right. Sometimes, Steve forgets that most of his teammates grew up on history lessons and wild cartoons about his life. They know most public tidbits about his life, certainly about a friendship as important as Bucky. “Actually, yes. He’s Jewish.  _ Was  _ Jewish, I suppose. I used to spend Friday nights with his family more often than not.”

“Hmm.” Natasha is quiet long enough that Steve assumes she’s decided to drop it. He’s just about to go up to his floor and retire for the night when she speaks up again. “Have you gone to a synagogue since coming out of the ice?” 

“Oh,  _ I’m  _ not Jewish. Buck was,” Steve clarifies, though he didn’t think there should have been any confusion about that. 

“I know. But you clearly miss home,” she says, with a strange tinge to her voice, like it’s some great big wonder that he misses his home, “and that was part of your home. It makes sense to me that you’d seek it out. A soldier has to be in good shape inside and out to fight their best, you know?” 

That makes a bit more sense, if she’s trying to make sure he’s in good shape for their next big fight. It stings a bit, to know that to his teammates, he’s really just Captain America, soldier and American icon. Steve’s only really had two people who could see him as just Steve Rogers, even after the serum. But now Bucky’s dead and Peggy’s in a nursing home a few states away. He should probably add ‘get used to performing 24/7’ to the already long list of things he needs to do for life in the 21st century. 

Steve promises he’ll think about it and then makes his much needed retreat to his bedroom. A quick Google search - he’s still getting the hang of the Internet, but he spends more time on Google than not these days - show several different synagogues within walking distance that he could probably go to even tonight, if he wanted to, but no. He needs some time to fuss and worry about the idea before he actually does it. No reckless Steve Rogers diving headfirst into dangerous territory here. 

Because sure, quiet Shabbat nights are a good memory in his mind, but that’s probably mostly because they’re inseparable from Bucky. It might not even be as much of a comfort as he thinks it might, to go alone, but he’ll try. He doesn’t have much else to do when he’s not busy saving the world, anyway. 

****

Steve gets together a battle plan for next Friday night. He treats it with nearly as much gravity as planning an actual mission, taking the time to print out a map of the city to scope out his route there and back, and calculate the times to leave the Tower, arrive, and leave back to the Tower again, so he’ll get there a little late and leave a little early. He hopes it won’t come off as disrespectful, but the last thing Steve wants now is to answer a million questions or end up on the cover of a tabloid. 

Of course, the plan is ruined fairly early into it. He arrives a few minutes late, like he wanted to, and finds a seat in a back corner, where he can sit alone and not attract attention. So far, so good. He remembers a few bits here and there and even gets a pretty good feeling of when he’s supposed to sit and stand. No sticking out from being the one person sitting down or anything of the sort. That’s good. That’s all good. 

But then near the end, there’s a few moments dedicated to reciting Kaddish and oh, Steve has some blurry childhood memories from this. He remembers when Bucky’s father died when they were both still young, and his mother had taken him along to the Barnes’ household to offer food and company. Bucky, hidden away with Steve in his bedroom, had been happy as ever - and probably eager for a distraction - to explain their traditions around death. They hadn’t made it very far before getting distracted playing cards, but Steve remembers about sitting shiva and saying Kaddish for some time after their deaths. He wonders if anyone was there to say it for Bucky, after he’d died and Steve had gone under the ice, and then he just breaks, starting to cry and never really stopping before the end of the service. 

That puts a damper on his plan to be out before everyone else, but he stays in his little corner, hunched over so no one recognizes him and, hopefully, doesn’t notice he’s crying. It’s fine. He’ll be fine. He just needs a minute and then he’ll get himself together and head out, back to the tower. If he wants to break down there, he will, but for now, he needs to put on a brave face and head out of here before someone can get a good look at him and wonder what Captain America is doing at Friday night Shabbat services. 

Of course, that is all easier said than done and before he can regain enough composure to leave, someone’s sat down next to him. Steve turns his head warily to check who and finds the rabbi sitting next to him. (A woman, which Steve assumes is one of the many changes of the 21st century, though he doesn’t mind it. He knows Bucky wouldn’t have either.) 

“You know, all through the dvar, I was convinced I needed to get my eyesight checked, because there was no way Captain America was sitting right in front of me,” she says. 

Steve remembers from his anxious researching and planning that her name is Naomi, though she’s also wearing a name tag that confirms it. At least that takes away some of the awkwardness of most of his encounters with strangers, when they know his name and he doesn’t know hers. Even though there’s still a few quiet tears coming down his face, he holds his hand out for a polite shake. “No need to worry about glasses just yet, ma’am. I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t come across as disrespectful. I should have probably called before coming in.” 

“Not at all. Just came as a bit of a shock, that’s all. I’m almost sure I would have heard it by now if Captain America was Jewish,” Rabbi Naomi explains. 

“I’m not. My best friend, Bucky… Sergeant Barnes from the Howlies. He was. All of this… it reminds me of him, I suppose. I just wanted to come see it one last time, see if it might help me make more sense of a world without Bucky Barnes in it.” Steve sighs softly, reaching up to wipe away the last few tears and hoping he doesn’t look as terrible as he feels. “This is an errand as Steve Rogers, I suppose, not Captain America.” 

“Of course.” Naomi pats his shoulder sympathetically. “I’m sorry. I suppose making the first thing I say to you about Captain America wasn’t the wisest of moves. I tend to check up on any congregants I see sniffling in a corner, not just the ones who put in costumes and save New York.” 

“I’m fine,” Steve promises, letting out an embarrassed laugh. “I would appreciate it if this… stayed between us. There aren’t many places I can go and not be the Captain.” 

“Of course. You’re welcome to come back here whenever you’d like. I’ll keep your corner free for you. And I won’t even come ask you if you’re crying next time,” she teases. Which Steve doesn’t mind all too much. Most people are too caught up in meeting Captain America to ever even think of joking with him. 

“I appreciate that, ma’am. I might take you up on that next week,” he says. Steve stands up and fixes his hat back on his head, so he can venture back out to the streets with at least some semblance of privacy. 

“Of course. Shabbat Shalom, Captain Rogers,” she bids him, before they go their own way. 

And despite the tears and the deep pang of grief in his chest when he thinks of Bucky, he somehow feels lighter than he has in weeks. Maybe he really will come back. 


	2. maybe there's a god above

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: hospitals

Going to Friday night services fit right into Steve’s schedule as though he’d been doing it forever. As long as the world wasn’t ending or the Avengers weren’t needed anywhere, Steve was in the back pew. Some days, when Avengers business had him busy on Friday nights, he’d come by Saturday mornings so he could at least get his weekly dose of feeling normal and calm and like the whole world isn’t resting on his shoulders. He couldn’t hide his identity forever, of course, but after the first few minutes of excited hero worship from the children or confused glances from adults, most people simply took it for granted that sometimes, Captain America stopped by their synagogue. 

In fact, after the first few months, he even started to feel more like Steve than the Captain. 

So, of course, work has him moving from New York to DC, where he has to go through the whole thing all over again. Though all his bags are packed and ready to move, Steve delays his flight another day, so he can get one last Friday night in before leaving. He takes in every word more carefully this time and lets the tunes wash over him, knowing it might be the last he’ll hear them for a few months at least. Or however long SHIELD has him on stand by in DC. They hadn’t been very forthcoming with information about the move. 

Once services end, Steve goes to mingle, gratefully accepting challah and wine from someone who teases him about his choice of pleated khakis, without any care that she’s teasing a national superhero. It leaves a dull ache in Steve’s chest, more sure than ever that he’s going to miss this. Somehow, he has a feeling DC will have him running into even more starstruck people than usual, since New York has a hero on practically ever block. 

“You look gloomier than usual,” Rabbi Naomi notes as she pulls up next to him. 

Steve sighs. “Moving to DC tomorrow. I’m just a glorified government employee at the end of the day. I’m just brooding a bit about how I’m going to miss all of this while I’m gone.” 

“Ah. We’ll miss you around here, of course, but I’m sure any synagogue down in DC will welcome you with open arms,” she assures him.

“Maybe,” he agrees, shrugging. “I should probably call this time around, instead of showing up unannounced and leaving their poor rabbi wondering what the very publicly not Jewish Captain America is doing there, huh?” 

Naomi just laughs. “Gosh. I forget you’re not Jewish, half the time. I should probably jot that down somewhere, before I go and start teaching my grandbabies about Steve Rogers, Jewish American icon.” 

Steve laughs as well, though the thought lingers in the back of his mind the rest of the night. Maybe things would have wound up differently if Bucky hadn’t died. He might have ended up with one of the many girls from his synagogue that Bucky was constantly trying to set him up with and that wouldn’t have been so far from the truth, except perhaps for the ‘icon’ part. But he’s just _ Steve Rogers: Captain America  _ now and Bucky’s been dead for so long that most everyone who knew him as a kid is dead too. No point in letting his thoughts linger there for too long. 

\---- 

Despite everything, Steve is not really a very actively religious man. As a child, his mother had never really taken him to mass or made him pray and these days, he goes to services for the community and nostalgia of it. Steve isn’t sure one way or the other if there’s a God above and most days, he’s fine to live in that uncertainty. When he wakes up in a hospital after the incident at the Triskelion, though? He prays. 

He cries and prays and tries to explain to Sam why Bucky is so important to him, even though he knows it’s not something just words will ever be able to describe. Normally, he’d be appalled at the thought of coming off so weakly in front of someone, even while hospitalized, but Sam has something about him that puts Steve’s nerves at ease. They haven’t known each other very long, but Steve feels comfortable around him in a way he hasn’t felt since Bucky. The two of them would like each other, he thinks. 

“You need to just stop and breathe for a second, man,” Sam encourages, giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze. “If nothing else, because I have a feeling you don’t want a nurse coming in to check why your pulse is going haywire.” 

"You're probably right," Steve mumbles, letting out a long sigh as he leans back against his pillows and forces himself to calm down. It's hard, with Bucky fresh in his mind, but Sam's right. He doesn't want any nurses here, asking what's wrong with him. He's having a difficult enough time explaining to Sam why this affects him so deeply. He's sure a nurse would be even more difficult to make understand. 

Sam hands him a few tissues, politely declining to comment about the fact that he's sitting next to the one and only Captain America having a ridiculous breakdown, complete with tears and erratic heartbeat and all. "This situation's getting to your head, huh?" 

"How can it not? Bucky's... He's my best friend. Means more to me than I think I could ever explain. Seeing him out there, acting like that.... Being Hydra's puppet... It's all wrong, in the most painful way possible," he explains. God. Poor Bucky would absolutely hate to find out about any of this. Bucky had been absolutely giddy any time they'd gone out and racked up a body count full of Nazis. If...  _ When _ he came back to his right mind and found out he'd been brainwashed to work as an assassin for them, Steve was willing to bet he'd be absolutely gutted. 

"You spent more time up close with him than any of us," Sam says carefully, and Steve has a feeling he already knows where this is going to lead. "Do you think there's a chance of getting him back?" 

"You didn't see what I saw, Sam. He saved me. I would have drowned and he saved me," Steve reminds him, clinging desperately to the only solid piece of evidence he has in Bucky's favor. Not that he wouldn't have put it all on the line for Bucky even without that. "And up on the Helicarrier... I swear, Sam, for a second, it was like he knew who I was. I saw it in his eyes." 

"Just a second, huh?" Sam asks. 

Steve nods. "I'll take a second. He's Bucky. I'd do anything for him. If what he needs now is for me to fight for him while he fights back? I'll do that too." 

"He's really special to you, huh?" Sam sighs. Steve nods again, without hesitation. "Mind if I ask you something about him, Steve?" 

Steve knows what the question will be. Really, he's surprised it hadn't been asked sooner. It was something just about everyone who had a chance to asked him, and usually with far less tact than Sam had right now. "We weren't together. Not properly. We were practically married, to be honest, living together, sharing beds and all that, but we weren't intimate. It was a different world. We knew queer people existed and Buck and I never had a problem with it or with turning a blind eye if we saw two fellas or two dames getting a little close, but... We didn't really reflect the popular opinion of the time, obviously. Neither of us wanted to put a word to it, too scared to, but we both knew there was something there. If we'd grown up today instead of back then... God, Sam, I think the two of us would have been dating by middle school and married by twenty." 

"You loved him, huh?" he asks, as though it needs to be asked. 

"Still do. With all my heart. And he loved me, too." Steve knows it. Maybe he's being cocky, but he's sure of it, somehow. 

"I guess you and I are embarking on a manhunt for a defrosted nonagenarian, huh?" Sam declares, giving Steve's hand a good natured pat. "Tell me about him. If I'm risking my butt saving some guy who tried to kill me, I want to at least know a bit about him." 

Steve grins, even though it hurts, beyond grateful that Sam is willing to do this for him, and always happy to talk about Bucky. He goes on for ages, emboldened slightly by the pain medication he's on. He tells Sam every ridiculous story he can think of, from all the trouble they'd get into as children, as well as just going on and on about Bucky. It's probably a bit embarrassing, the way he goes on about Bucky's hair and eyes and how handsome he was and how every girl on the block had loved him, but... who can blame him? He's happy to know that Bucky is out there, somewhere, and alive, even if these aren't necessarily the most ideal of circumstances. 

He talks Sam's ear off for the entirety of visitation hours and when it's just him in the silence, he murmurs prayers to anyone who might be listening. Prayers for Bucky's safety out there, for the hope that they'll find each other soon, the hope that Bucky's in there somewhere and whatever Hydra had done to him isn't permanent. And eventually, as he starts to drift off to sleep again, he adds in a quick thank you, to whoever had given him his best friend back from death. It's enough to make anyone believe in a higher power.

****

When Steve goes home to New York, the very first thing he does is go back to Rabbi Naomi and sit her down for a long overdue conversation. Steve loves coming to services and being there as a friend, like he did with Bucky, but truth be told, there's something itching inside of him, wanting more. He doesn't want to be the odd one out anymore. He wants to be a part of these people just as deeply and wholeheartedly as he feels. Shul and services have been the only place he's felt like home for a long time. 

He wants to convert. It just fits in perfectly as the next step. Rabbi Naomi only makes a sly comment about how it took him long enough when Steve finally gets around to saying it, after an awkward preamble about hoping he didn't come off as disrespectful and knowing it would be a long process and mentioning Bucky and promising he'll put in the work in as consistent a schedule as he can manage while working with the Avengers. In other words, while being as awkward as Steve Rogers always is. (It's a miracle he's managed to convince the rest of the world that Captain America is smooth and suave and charming, because Steve Rogers certainly isn't.) 

A cynical side of Steve has a feeling he could put in next to no effort and still be converted, since just about everyone would salivate at the chance to have Captain America as their poster boy, but he wants to put in the effort. He wants to study and learn and really devote himself to this as wholeheartedly as possible, just like if he were anyone else and not Captain America, the country's darling boy. It's a headache, fitting everything into his schedule, between working with the Avengers and searching for Bucky, but it's a headache Steve is glad to have. Anytime he feels his motivation lagging or his fatigue winning over, he thinks back to being a kid with Bucky, observing Shabbats with his family and Bucky's wide grin as he told his family members about Steve being 'not Jewish  _ yet _ '. He's doing this for himself, not for Bucky, he'd mulled it over for long enough to be sure of that, but it certainly doesn't hurt to think that he and Bucky might have this in common the next time they see each other again. 

Steve spends his time between DC and New York these days. He doesn't have much to do in DC now, after everything that had happened with SHIELD, and he says it's to be closer to Sam when they're not looking for Bucky, but truth be told, Sam is more than happy to see him up in New York instead. He just wants to be sure Bucky can find him if he comes looking. He’s sure that Bucky, given his skill set, could find him just about anywhere in the world, but Steve feels a little better being in the same apartment building as before. It’s probably a silly thing to hope for, but Steve will cling to it nonetheless. 

And like another miracle, of similar grandeur to the one that had brought Bucky back to him, Steve lets himself into his DC apartment early one Saturday morning and spots Bucky in a shadowy corner, inspecting Steve’s candleholders on the mantle with a concerned scowl on his face. Steve can’t help it. His keys slip out of his hands and he stares at him, half certain he must be hallucinating. 

“...Buck?” he whispers, taking a careful step forward. He’s not the least bit concerned with his own safety. More than anything, Steve just wants to be careful he doesn’t spook him away. 

Bucky looks in his direction and for a split second, Steve sees fear and hope and exhaustion flash in his eyes, right before they go right back to the same steely determination of the Winter Soldier. “I don’t know who you are. Or who Bucky is. But since Hydra fell, you’re all I can think of, when I should be searching for a new handler or for a surviving safe house. Help me figure out why.” 

Steve wants to do a lot of things. He wants to cry and hug Bucky and never let him go. He wants to tell him he loves him and promise he’ll fill him in on everything. He wants to assure Bucky he’ll never have a handler or work under Hydra again. He wants to beg him to stay forever. He wants to just go over and touch him, to prove to himself this is real. But instead, Steve just nods. “Yeah, Buck. Of course I’ll help you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cries in Stucky and Jewish Steve*


	3. the holy dove was moving too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: food mention

Steve tells Sam and Natasha that Bucky's come back to him, so they won't keep looking for leads to follow or embarking on trips to strange places, but mostly, he tries to keep it quiet. Bucky is still very much a wanted criminal, after all, and Steve would rather die before letting Bucky get taken off to stand trial for crimes he committed while tortured and brainwashed. They'll handle it eventually, of course, but for now, he helps Bucky stay hidden away here in his apartment and the rest of the city. The rest of the world can wait for Bucky to heal. 

He moves them back to New York, partly because he thinks Brooklyn will help jog Bucky's memory and partly because he's not sure how he'll be able to deal with his world turning around like this if he doesn't have his Friday nights and his quiet study meetings with Naomi and all the elderly Jewish grandmas in his congregation who have practically adopted him. Once or twice, he considers bringing Bucky along, but no, that's probably not the best idea right now. Too much too fast. As much as Steve wants to sit Bucky down and just tell him every little detail of their childhood and friendship, Sam's warned him against it. 

And Sam, being the absolute best friend anyone could ever hope for, had also moved out to New York temporarily, to stay in Steve's apartment and help out with Bucky any way he can. Steve knows he's lucky to have friends like this, but now more than ever, he's not sure where he would be without them. Being Captain America can wait. Right now, he needs to be Steve Rogers and Sam is just about the only person in the world who really understands that. 

Being Steve Rogers is harder than being Cap these days. He's trying to be patient with Bucky, to not get caught up in all the possibilities his head can come up with of what life might be like once Bucky is better. But it's hard. It's hard to see how blankly Bucky stares at him; to see the way Bucky carries himself so stiffly, more weapon than soldier; to see Bucky acting so differently from who he once was when they were kids, gloomy and silent instead of so painfully charming and outgoing, like that kid from Brooklyn. That's not even the most painful part of it all, really. The most painful part is when he can see bits and pieces of the real Bucky peeking through. Sometimes, in the morning, when Bucky is still tired and groggy from sleep - on the rare nights where he really does sleep - he acts more like his old self. His words will get back their easy Brooklyn drawl and he'll smirk at Steve over a cup of coffee like they're winding down after a night out. Those mornings hurt more than anything, because Steve can convince himself, even if just for a few minutes, that he has Bucky back again. 

Sam's constantly telling him not to be let down by that. That instead, Steve should see it as a good sign, that Bucky is still in there somewhere, and they only need to help him break out, but it weighs heavily on Steve nonetheless. He's never been so glad to have his prayers and routines to fall back on. It's just about the only thing giving Steve sanity through all this. 

Some days are worse than others. Some days, Bucky isn't just stiff and distant like usual. Some days, Steve can see how he's still fighting deep inside, against everything Hydra had done to him and some of the wounds will peek through. Those days, Steve doesn't even leave the apartment, too afraid that he'll come back to find that Bucky's run away again or that he's retreated so deeply back into himself that they'll go back to square one. This week, this day happened to fall on a Friday, and even though Steve loves the comfortable peace of Friday nights at shul, he knows he can't leave Bucky like this. Anyone who's gotten to know him there will understand, he's sure. So he sends off a text to Rabbi Naomi to apologize for missing and stays with Bucky. 

Mostly, Bucky doesn't really want to do much on days like this. He doesn't ask to be alone or hide in his room to be away from Steve, not anymore, but he doesn't socialize either. Not like the Bucky Steve had once known who could make small talk with a wall if given the chance. (No matter how hard he tries, Steve can't help but think of those things sometimes.) So Steve's way of 'helping' is really just to sit around and keep Bucky quiet company around the apartment. Sometimes Sam will stay, sometimes he'll leave. In those moments, the rest of the world but Bucky is practically irrelevant. Maybe he's not really doing much to help by just sitting around with him, but Bucky's never really complained about it, which Steve will take for as good a sign as any. 

Formal services or not, Steve can't bring himself to go through the night without any acknowledgement of it being Shabbat, so once he's made dinner for the both of them - and left it on the stove without further comment, since Bucky sometimes reacts negatively to Steve's attempts to feed and care for him - he grabs a box of matches and goes to light his Shabbat candles. Not wanting to disturb Bucky, he murmurs the prayers under his breath, the Hebrew still a bit clumsy and unsure in his mouth, though better than before. He steps back once they're lit, taking a moment to just stand by the candlelight and breathe, letting some of the week's stress flow out of his body. When he turns back around, meaning to grab himself a plate of dinner and sit down to eat, he finds Bucky staring back at him, wide eyed and confused. As much as Steve wants to jump on it, ask him a million questions or make guesses as to why he looks that way, he forces himself not to do anything, and to instead wait for Bucky to break the silence. 

And after a minute that feels like an eternity, Bucky speaks up, in the familiar Brooklyn drawl that Steve only hears in early mornings these days. "What're you doing? You ain't Jewish, punk." 

"Not yet," Steve agrees easily, trying not to react too much. Every once in a while, Bucky will get a quick flash of something, but he'll forget as quickly as he remembers, or he'll say things that sound like the old him, but without any real understanding of why. This could easily be one of those instances. Getting visibly excited just puts too much pressure on Bucky and makes him feel unnecessary guilt when his healing process takes longer than expected. That's what Sam had told him, countless times. 

Bucky frowns, staring down at his lap. His flesh arm reaches up to rub at his forehead. He mumbles, "My head hurts. Like after one of those dreams. Did we do this a lot? You and your friend, I mean." 

"Do you have any sense of how often we did this?" Steve asks, instead of answering. Another thing Sam had warned him about had been providing too many answers and causing Bucky to create fake memories or to simply use his skills in espionage to do a sort of recon on Bucky Barnes of the 40s and put on an act for Steve's sake. Steve wants the real Bucky, whoever that is today. 

"Don't do that, Stevie," Bucky says, shaking his head. And the effort it takes to keep himself from reacting too obviously to that old nickname is probably more effort than Steve puts into most of his missions. "I know what you and Sam do, trying not to trip up my brain more than it already is, but right now... Right now, my brain feels like it's 'bout to burst with everything trying to get out. I just want answers. Please." 

Steve sighs. He's trying to be a good friend and do the hard things, like Sam suggests, but at the end of the day, he's weak. Especially when it comes to Bucky. So he nods and goes to sit down on the couch, careful not to sit too close to Bucky and startle him. "Yeah, okay. Just don't go snitching on me to Sam, deal?" he jokes, though it falls flat. "We did do this a lot. Every week. Well, you and your family did this every week. You were Jewish. Ma raised me Catholic, but I spent more time tailing behind you to synagogue and your family's holidays than going to Mass. So yeah, we did this a lot as kids." 

"And you're doing it now... to jog my memory?" Bucky guesses, looking up at Steve and sitting closer. 

Steve's heart nearly skips a beat at having Bucky so close, but he tries to ignore it, like everything else. "No. Before I knew you were still alive, I started going to services like when we were kids. It made me feel a little closer to you. Eventually... I don't know, it just seemed like a no brainer that I'd convert properly. It felt overdue, even." 

Bucky nods, slow as he mulls this information over with the efficient calculation of a living weapon, as he usually does when given a new tidbit of information. "He...  _ I  _ must have been pretty important to you, huh?" 

"You have no idea, Buck," he agrees, sighing. "Did that... Help at all? Jog some memories?" 

"I don't know. But my head doesn't hurt so much, so that's something. Tell me more?" Bucky requests. 

And how can Steve say no to that? Even though he should probably double check with Sam whether or not this will do more harm than it'll help, he starts telling Bucky about moments like this in their childhood. He tries not to say too much, just sharing a few stories and providing just enough descriptions of the Barnes household for Bucky to visualize it properly. 

Bucky is mostly quiet during all of this, occasionally nodding to show he's still listening. Steve doesn't take it personally. Bucky is just quiet these days. Even the nods are more than he and Sam sometimes get in return when they talk to him. Eventually, Steve convinces Bucky to come to the table and have dinner with him while he talks, which is another accomplishment he's happy to take. Bucky also has a habit of eating alone in his room, at odd hours when everyone else is either asleep or away, like he doesn't want anyone in their little household to know he's human. When Sam gets home, Steve is washing their dishes with a grin so wide it hurts, while Bucky is sat in the living room, alternating between scribbling away at the notebook he always carries and staring at the burning candles. 

"Progress?" Sam asks as he steps into the kitchen to pour himself some water. 

Steve nods. "Progress." 

****

The next week is probably the best they've had so far. Bucky wakes Steve up in the middle of the night a few times to tell him about his dreams, seeking confirmation on if it's a recovered memory or not. (The dreams had all been real memories, mostly of the two of them, which warms Steve's heart more than he could ever say). And during their waking hours, Bucky spends most of his time at their dining table, bent over his little notebook and writing or sketching or pasting little print outs from the Internet. He doesn't let anyone see what he's writing, but Steve knows it's the notebook he uses to record the flashes of memories he sometimes has, so he takes it as a good sign that he's writing so much in it. 

Friday morning, Steve is woken up by a knock at his door. It's earlier than his alarm would go off, which is saying a lot, considering Steve's early morning runs. But the soldier in him is something he's never been able to outgrow, so he's on his feet and fully awake in a heartbeat. He opens the door, expecting to find Bucky standing there, in his sleepwear and seeking confirmation of a dream, but instead Bucky is fully dressed in dress pants and one of Steve's nicer shirts, that he must have grabbed from the laundry machine while Steve hadn't been paying attention. His shoes - also something Steve suspects Bucky's grabbed from Steve's closet - are even polished.

"I want to go with you today," Bucky declares. And a moment later, clarifies, "To services, I mean. For Shabbat." 

"Oh. Well. It's not until later in the evening, so we have some time before it. But I'm happy to take you, yeah," Steve agrees. 

“So I didn’t need to wake you?” Bucky asks, wincing a bit. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize, Buck. You can wake me anytime you want. For anything at all. C’mon, I’ll get some coffee made,” he offers, stepping around Bucky and going into the kitchen. 

Bucky trails behind him, quiet as ever, and sits at the table to wait for coffee to be ready. It’s ridiculously endearing, the sight of Bucky fully dressed in the nicest clothes he can find and sitting at his dining room table, but like most things with Bucky, Steve tries not to think about it too much. If he does, he might just end up forgetting that he and Bucky aren’t like  _ that  _ anymore and say something that’ll hurt Bucky. Or worse, he’ll get caught up in all his fantasies of what life with Bucky in the 21st century might be like and do something stupid like try to kiss him. It’s the last thing either of them needs right now. 

So Steve makes sure to keep himself firmly rooted in the here and now as he hands Bucky a cup of coffee and sits down. “You’re welcome to change your mind between now and when I usually leave, of course, but I’m happy to take you with me.” 

“I won’t change my mind,” Bucky promises, frowning down at his coffee. “I had another dream last night, Stevie, and I was wondering… Well… Never mind. What time do we leave?” 

Steve wants very much to pry and find out what Bucky’s question would have been, but he knows better by now, so he just keeps going like it hadn’t happened. “Around 5 or so. I like to get there a little early to help set up.” 

“Of course you do. I don’t know why, but I’m not surprised,” Bucky says. The frown disappears, replaced by a familiar grin. It’s gone quickly, as soon as Bucky notices, and he looks like he’s even surprised himself with it, but Steve relishes it for even as briefly as it had been there. 

“Don’t make fun of it too much, because you’re going to be stuck helping me out.” Steve laughs. 

They leave a little later than Steve intended, though it’s mostly Steve’s fault because he spends a significant amount of time double checking that Bucky wants to go and hasn’t changed his mind and isn’t only doing this because he thinks he has to. Once they get there, though, Steve sees his concern was for nothing. All night long, Bucky is calm and present in a way that Steve’s never really seen before. He helps set up without much complaint and is every bit the perfectly charming nice Jewish boy Steve rememberers from childhood. They have a long way to go, Steve knows, but right now, this… this is more perfect than Steve could have ever imagined.


	4. i'll stand before the lord of song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: food and alcohol mention

That night ends up being a turning point for Bucky. It could have been thanks to any number of reasons, including just a result of Bucky having finally spent enough time away from Hydra that his mind had started to clear up. Regardless, Steve makes sure to say a quiet, grateful prayer next time he has a chance. He's just happy to have Bucky back. The rest doesn't matter. 

It doesn't happen all at once. Sam's warned the both of them that some memories might never come back at all. But the whole weekend after that night, Bucky keeps jotting down memories in his notebook and asking Steve about dreams and flashbacks he has and even starting to sound more like when they were kids until one day, Bucky shows up at Steve's doorway one night to tell Steve that yes, he thinks he really is the same man that had been Steve's best friend once upon a time. Steve had never doubted it, of course, and he has a feeling Bucky had stopped questioning it a long while back, but during Bucky's first few weeks here, he'd insisted that he wasn't the same man Steve remembered and that their resemblance had to be nothing more than a coincidence at best or a deliberate cloning at worst. Steve doesn't cry at hearing Bucky agree that he really is the same Bucky that Steve once knew, but he comes close. 

He gestures Bucky to come inside and it almost feels like when they were kids at sleepovers and they'd laid next to each other to chat late into the night. He means to pull his desk chair out so they can sit, but Bucky sits next to him in bed before he can. Maybe Bucky's reminded of those days, too. "So... Finally stopped fighting the fact that you're my Bucky, huh? You're stuck with me forever," he teases. (And even if he is happy and joking, Steve keeps a careful eye on Bucky's reactions. He wants to believe this will stick, but if Bucky shows any signs of sliding back or growing uncomfortable, Steve will go back to giving him his space in a heartbeat.) 

"Punk," Bucky mumbles, shoving at Steve's shoulder. "I don't remember it all, I still get something new every day, it feels like, but... I don't know. It's enough and it doesn't feel like watching the movie of someone else's life anymore." 

"I knew you'd come back to me, Buck," Steve says. And he can't help it. Professionalism and Sam's guidelines be damned, he leans forward to pull Bucky into as tight a hug as he can manage. Bucky, for the first time since he's arrived, doesn't flinch away or sit still. He wraps his arms around Steve, instead, and hugs him back. 

"Til the end of the line, right?" he agrees. Steve hasn't heard that in so long, he can't help it, a sob escapes him and he grips Bucky tighter. Bucky reaches up to pat down Steve's hair, a painfully familiar gesture from when they were kids and Steve was a tiny little thing. "Hey, don't cry. I thought you'd be happy to hear that. I guess you've always been a confusing li'l punk." 

Steve snorts out a laugh. "I am happy. Swear it. It's happy tears." 

"Better be," Bucky says, pulling back from the hug so he can see Steve's face again. "Say, Stevie, you won't start crying more if I ask you something, will you?" 

Steve shrugs. "Depends on what you're asking. Ask anyway. They'll be good tears, I promise." 

"If you say so," he murmurs, moving one hand up to the side of Steve's face to wipe them away. "I just keep having these dreams and all these tangled up feelings in my heart and... we were in love. Right?"

Of all the things Steve thought Bucky might have asked, this was probably at the very end of the list. He's not even sure what he's supposed to say now and he wishes Sam were awake to tell him what the right answer to this is supposed to be. "Buck... It's complicated. Maybe not the talk to have so early on." 

"Please, Stevie," he begs. "I can take it. I'm me. Maybe not all of me. But I'm me, I promise. You used to stuff your shoes with newspapers to look taller and we'd have sleepovers every night, tossed out on couch cushions in the living room and I was constantly fishing you out of trouble in back alleys 'cause your mouth was bigger than the rest of ya and when you picked me up off that table in Austria, I wasn't sure whether to kiss you for saving my life or smack you upside the head for doing something so stupid. It's me, Stevie, and it's killing me that I don't know whether I just don't remember anything or if we were both really just stupid enough to never do nothing about being so obviously in love with each other." 

"Bucky... You make this hard, you know that? I'm trying so hard to be what you need, what you really  _ need  _ instead of what I want and you make it impossible," Steve mumbles, leaning his forehead against Bucky's.

"Take a break from being perfect, then," Bucky insists. "Be a little selfish." 

Steve sighs softly. He knows there's no winning this. Not when he doesn't want to win. "Of course I loved you, you big dumb jerk. And I was pretty sure you loved me too. But like you said... we were just stupid enough to never act on it. Things were different then. We were scared." 

"Might be a big dumb jerk, but I'm your big dumb jerk, at least," Bucky says. "Things are better now, we both know that. I don't see the point in being idiots any longer." 

He wants to cave. He very much wants to cave. Bucky shifts so he's practically sitting on Steve's lap and he looks every bit the charming ladies' man from their adolescence, not a broken and hurting soldier. Steve wants to be weak and selfish and just tug Bucky closer and get a taste for what they've been missing out on for so long, but Bucky deserves better than that. So as painful as it is, Steve pulls away from him and puts some space between them. Really, they're just sitting at arm's length now, but it's better than being up on each other. 

"We waited so long, there's no need to rush it now, Buck. Let's take a few days, then come back to it. How about that?" Steve suggests. 

Bucky sighs. "Stevie, I've only started remembering who I am these last few weeks and I already feel like I've been waiting forever for you. You must feel about ten times worse." 

"You're worth waiting for," Steve promises, reaching for Bucky's hand and bringing it closer so he can kiss his knuckles. "How about this: you can stay the night here. No funny business or anything, just like when we were kids and we'd share beds 'cause it was cold or we stayed up too late and didn't make it to our sleeping bags." 

"Figures I gotta spend close to a century helplessly in love with the most annoyingly noble fella around, huh?" Bucky grumbles. 

But Steve can hear the tinge of endearment behind it and he just smiles and leans forward to kiss Bucky's forehead. "That's all you're getting for now, so settle down for the night or head back to your own room. I won't be offended if that's what you prefer."

"Gosh, don't be ridiculous. I'm staying here. Of course I'm staying. Never gonna leave ya again. I'm gonna be like your shadow," he promises. 

Steve most definitely doesn't mind that. The two of them are already dressed down to their sleepwear, so Steve just reaches to turn the lamp off and lays down. He stays on top of the covers, lest his ever weakening resolve crumble from being burrowed underneath with Bucky. Not that Bucky seems to care too much. He's more than happy to lay down and get up close to Steve, letting their ankles cross between each other and laying with his back only just barely not touching Steve's chest. Steve already expects to get an earful from Sam in the morning, but for now, he's too happy to do just lay here and enjoy Bucky's presence. Bucky seems to be doing the same, which Steve can't blame him for. Steve's just gotten his best friend back. Bucky's gotten his whole self back. 

Steve would expect Bucky to be a bit gloomy for a while longer, even if it is in the easy, joking way that Bucky tends to do those things. But instead, Bucky just starts laughing after a few minutes of their laying in silence. Steve huffs softly and pokes his side. "What's so funny, huh?" 

"Just thinking 'bout how happy Bubbe Barnes would be that you really did turn out Jewish in the end, just like I always said," Bucky explains, rolling over to face Steve. 

"Well. Not Jewish yet. Not for another two weeks, give or take a possible catastrophic event that requires superheroing," Steve says. But he smiles, of course, because he'd thought about those old memories so many times during all this and to hear Bucky remember them too is the greatest gift Steve could ever wish for. "But yeah. I guess Bubbe Barnes would be pretty happy." 

"Absolutely ecstatic. Ma would be happy too. I'm happy too, obviously, but I'm going to need you to have an embarrassing Bar Mitzvah I can go to, so we'll be even," Bucky insists. 

Steve laughs and rolls onto his back so he can wind an arm around Bucky's shoulders. "I'll see what I can do, Buck." 

"You better." Bucky's quiet for a while, but it's the kind of quiet that Steve's come to know means he's trying to figure out how to ask something. Sure enough, just when Steve thought he might have been wrong and maybe Bucky had started to fall asleep, he spoke up again. "Is it true what you told me before? 'Bout how you started doing all this because it reminded you of me?" 

"It is true, yeah," Steve nods. "I missed you so much when I got out of the ice, it felt like my head and heart were both gonna split right down the middle. Going to services or crashing Shabbat dinner at some little old grandma's house helped the pain go away. It made me think about all those times when we were kids, and those memories hurt a hell of a lot less than thinking about us at war." 

"That makes sense. It seems like you, Stevie. I bet you're an even nicer Jewish boy than I ever was," he teases. 

"What sorta question is that? Of course I am," Steve agrees, laughing. 

"All right, all right, I'll give you that. I'm still more handsome than you, though. I mean, c'mon. I got a guy to convert so he could marry me properly and we hadn't even started dating yet." Bucky grins wide and winks at him. It looks so much like the Bucky he remembers that Steve's heart pangs, only this time, it's from joy instead of pain, which he can definitely get used to. 

"Oh, c'mon. I did it for me. No potential weddings in mind at all," Steve insists. 

Bucky just laughs. "It's okay, Stevie. I know the truth. It can stay between the two of us." 

*****

Sam, it turns out, is rather supportive of Steve and Bucky's relationship, once they're all fairly confident that Bucky really has healed enough for this sort of thing. He's supportive in a best friend sort of way, meaning there's a lot of complaining about getting his eyes burned whenever he spots them being affectionate in public, but supportive nonetheless. Which is a good thing, because Sam ends up being invaluable help when Steve finally presents Bucky to the rest of the Avengers. It's tense and awkward, of course, and there's plenty left to be done on the legal side of things, but they at least establish a stalemate of sorts. Enough that when Steve comes out of the mikveh, he and Bucky go out for celebratory dinner without worrying about getting swarmed by secret agents trying to arrest them or something. 

It's a good place to be. Steve would be happy if the rest of his life is nothing more than walking down Brooklyn, hand in hand with Bucky after a nice dinner. It's definitely all he could ever want for celebration, though he'd been a little surprised when Bucky had readily agreed to such a lowkey event. 

Steve is ashamed to admit that he's actually caught off guard when he opens their apartment door and pretty much everyone Steve's introduced Bucky to jumps out from behind various furniture shouting, "Surprise!" 

He's, at least, proud to say that he's  _ not  _ surprised by the giant banner with ' _ Happy Bar Mitzvah'  _ hanging up on the wall. 

"You kept saying you weren't going to have a Bar Mitzvah with bad haircuts and ill fitting suits and embarrassing speeches, so I had to improvise," Bucky explains, winding an arm around Steve's waist. “Happy fake Bar Mitzvah, sweetcheeks.” 

Steve has to admit, there's a pretty good spread laid out for their little party. Enough food to happily feed two super soldiers and a god, as well as a mini bar off to the side that had definitely not been there when Steve left this morning. He wonders briefly how Bucky had pulled this together when they'd been together all afternoon, but then Tony pops out from the kitchen and ah. That makes sense. It also explains why there's also a brand new, much bigger TV set up in the living room. 

"There's the man of the hour! Your boyfriend here texted me - by the way, much quicker to adapt to text than you were, Mr. I sign my texts off like it's a letter - and paid me in embarrassing stories of you as kids, which is better than anything money can buy. So, here we are. Mazel tov and all that." Tony's brandishing a bottle of Manischewitz like a prize, which he pushes into Steve's hands. "The new wine fridge I got you is stocked with much better than this glorified grape jelly, but I figure it's tradition. And speaking of tradition, expect a generous deposit in a multiple of 18 in your bank account." 

"Uh... Thanks, guys." Steve gives the room an awkward little wave. 

Put him on a battlefield or in the middle of the city while aliens are attacking and he's fine. He can do lead his team with all the confidence in the world then. But a social function like this? Steve's always been hopelessly awkward at these things. Luckily, Bucky grabs him by the arm and takes him around the room to say hello to everyone. Even while still going through his recovery from Hydra, Bucky is still the social one between them. He's sure once everyone recovers from the shock of Captain America dating the Winter Soldier, the Avengers PR department will be happy to have someone who can help Steve make less of a fool of himself at all his public events. 

Once they've done a lap around the room and grabbed a plate full of snacks, Bucky pulls Steve aside. "This is okay, right? I worried it might be too much, but... I want your friends to like me and I wanted to celebrate this and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. You're not uncomfortable?" 

"It's perfect, Bucky," he promises, leaning over to give him a kiss. He's half tempted to pull Bucky away to their bedroom and leave the party to entertain itself, but then Bucky pulls him back into the throe of things with that mischievous grin on his face. 

"Good. Because I am  _ ready  _ to lift you up over my head in a chair." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final installment of this! Thanks for sticking around <3

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are, of course, loved and appreciated <3 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at sebbym17 or Twitter @sebbypn :)


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